Stainless Barrel Finish (Mirror)

C

cwood3

New member
I have a stainless barrel (new) and action. I'd like to polish it to get a mirror finish. I heard somewhere that you get better results by "draw polishing", where the buffing medium is run parallel to the bore axis. This is to prevent "waves" that might develop through the use of spinning the barrel in a lathe or similar device. I know to go slow, don't get things hot, etc. Anyone use this "draw polishing" method? I'd guess using green (for stainless) compound with a spiral-sewn wheel, then go to green compound with a loose-sewn wheel. Make sense ? Am I thinking crazy ? Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

CW :(
 
You will get a nice job with a combination of draw filing, draw polishing, and lengthwise buffer polishing. All the heavy work is done with increasingly finer grades of wet and dry paper (preferrably run wet) backed with a sanding block followed by a quick buff with the green polishing compound. The amount of work involved is high, and is dependent on how bright a mirror you want... I use a lathe for most of the grunt work, preventing waves by keeping the abrasives in consant motion up and down the barrel. Draw polishing will give a better final look as the fine striations will all be going in the same direction. Then give a very light buff over the top of the fine striations.

If you can find an old gunsmithing book and study their "barrel striking" instructions you will have a leg up.

Scott
 
"Draw polishing" is a bastardization of a filing technique wherein a SINGLE-CUT FILE is held at 90degrees to the workpiece and "drawn" using both hands. If this makes no sense look up "draw knife" in an online tool catalog to see what I'm talking about.

Draw filing is a way to remove the ripples inherent to turned stock (like barrels) using only hand tools.

I warn you that you must in some way examine the barrel for ripples because otherwise you're gonna' spend a MONTH (I'm not exaggerating) polishing this thing only to have every ripple and imperfection LEAP to your eye like a jumping spider....... you'll hate it.

Whoever told you that "draw polishing" will remove ripples is smoking something green or gold :) ........... Now if you spend a LOT of time long-stroking the barrel with successive grits of backed sandpaper you can remove ripples, over time.... LOTS of time.


Generally speaking, once you've got the barrel lightly polished and examined for smoothness AND YOU'VE ADDRESSED THE RIPPLES, you'll want to polish it using a spinner. You will work the spinner at 30-50degrees from horizontal and you will alternate or "rock" it periodically. You'll spin it out one way and then tip it the other way and spin out all of your marks.


IF there's a secret to proper polishing it's that you constantly move the piece but let all of the grit lines form in one direction. When ALL of the lines are running one way you then turn the workpiece ("rock" it) and polish all of those lines out until ALL of the lines run the other way.

For your absolute final polish it's sometimes advantageous to run parallel to the bore of the barrel ONLY because the scratches that you leave will be harder to see and less intrusive.

Polishing an entire project this way not only WON'T WORK, it's dangerous. Running the piece this way is exhausting work and you'll sooner or later end up with your knuckles or face tangled in the wheel. Buffing wheels WILL leave a mark on your delicate complexion...........


al
 
Shevelin I'm sorry to have doubled on you, you type faster :)

NOTHING in my post is meant to modify or refer to Shevelin's post, I was replying solely to the OP.

al
 
Al,

Thanks for your comment - no offense taken. You and i are probably in agreement that this is not really a buffing job, as it is almost impossible to avoid smearing things in the process using a wheel. It also is a real lot of time and work but is great for increasing your finger strength! I have muslin buffers, felt buffers, sanding belts and wet/dry paper running from 40 grit to 6 micron and I choose to bead blast most the stainless barrels I fit. Still, if you want a mirror polish you need to pay your dues and that means doing all steps keeping things flat (no ripples) with all the grit lines going in the same direction. This is why I recommend only giving a slight final power buff after sanding everything out
longitudinally.

CW - a mirror polish barrel will need to be protected if you want it to stay that way. Since barrel steel is so soft, any number of items will scratch it in a heartbeat. It is not a very practical finish. Good luck.

Scott
 
Shevelin,

Yup, I can guarantee that we agree ............... because we've both paid our dues :)

I guess I should have clarified something concerning "ripples". IME barrels COME WITH ripples, the first order of businass is to make the barrel "flat", a process which most often requires some brute-force metal removal. Running the barrel on an old lathe while belt-sanding it at 45* comes to mind (although the thought of belt sanding a barrel on MY LATHE gives me hives!)

Spinning a barrel diagonally against a flexibly supported belt can work.

Or if the barrel is a straight taper of some sort, just set up to re-cut it flat....


etc.......


But once the barrel's FLAT, no ripples, then I still maintain that the quickest way to work up to a shine is to use the old "cross-sand to sand out your previous marks" method. Working the barrel ONLY lengthwise would be counter-productive and couldn't really produce a serious mirror finish. Shiny, YES..... Mirror, NO.


And OHHHH Buddy-Buddy until you've hooked the end of a barrel in a muslin wheel and drove it down onto your second toe YOU AIN'T LIVED!!!


(Marcinko's Corollary......... "pain is nature's way of telling you you're still alive")



LOL


al
 
A highly polished barrel sure does look good, after all that work. It will show every little scratch and blemish with use, and sooner or later it will be shot out.

Not trying to discourage anyone, but if you have the time and means, go for it.
 
Hey! Are you guys subtly trying to convince me to buy a bead blast rig? I dang sure don't mind doing that because I have several other anal retentive hobbies that would benefit from it. I just get all glassy-eyed when I look at some of the rifles of the week over on the 6BR forum. What happens when you cerakote a barrel...?.....any affects on heat dissapation? Black oxide....? Good old blued....? Ijust want to get it done before Obama gets in office and outlaws guns that can shoot a decent group.......prolly makes him nervous......???

Thanks again fellers.

CW
 
CW

I do Cerakote here but can't say one way or the other about heat dissapation. If I'm at the range and it gets hot I pour ice water down the barrel, clean and start shooting again.

Dave
 
CW

I'm gonna jump onto Wayne's side here. A barrel is an expendable, just like a bullet, a primer, or a powder charge. Too many guys fall in love with a barrel and when the barrel is no longer competitive they have a hard time dumping it. More often than not they will continue to shoot it past it's prime and lose some matches in the process. Making it pretty just makes it that much harder to part with.

Polish it to where it looks presentable and let it go. That's my advice.

Turning a barrel at slow RPMs in a lathe and running an orbital sander up and down its length will give you a certain amount of heat dissipation and will also give a different looking finish that is not bad looking.

I'm not ashamed to say that I don't even stamp mine. A fine tip magic marker is all I need.

JMHO

Ray
 
Striking vs. draw filing

If you're draw filing the barrel then the ripples will be as big as the width of the file. If you run the file lengthwise with the barrel this is called striking. Striking produces a better, straighter looking finish. It also takes much longer. I usually draw file the high spots, strike the barrels straight and polish the barrel lengthwise with a hardwood form block about 8" long with a ball mill @ radius depth run through the length of it. The form block should be close to or bigger than the radius of the barrel. You can use this form block in the lathe and then move it to the vise and then polish the length. If you progress up the grits doing lathe and hand work with each grit, you can see where you're going and end up cutting faster like posted above. Polishing 90 deg to the previous polish makes it easy to see when you're done. I don't buff the barrels to a mirror but stop at 600 grit where the final lines run length ways. I use wet/dry paper and a little wd40 with the smaller grits keeps the dust down.
gunmaker
 
After polishing a barrel I recently started doing something a little different. My final finish is done by running the barrel at a slower speed on the lathe and sanding with 4-500 grit lubed with wd-40. I move the paper quickly back and forth so the 'trail' of sanding slurry shows about a 45 degree angle accross the barrel. After a minute or two of that and you have a surface finish that looks like the final honing of a cylinder crosshatch. Looks very attractive to my eye on a target barrel and seems to cover any surface imperfections very well. I always cover the ways with a long piece of cardboard while doing this.
 
A little Rednekkid Justification

Wayne Shaw said:
A highly polished barrel sure does look good, after all that work. It will show every little scratch and blemish with use, and sooner or later it will be shot out.

Not trying to discourage anyone, but if you have the time and means, go for it.
Click to expand...


Wayne, you're soooo right, BUT.........


I've got a perty green gun with a metal-flake paint job, my first "pretty" custom gun. I ordered it with several barrels and had ONE of them polished. I later set up a polished and blued barrel for the same rifle. The blued barrel is now a fireform barrel, the polished SS one's still shooting well.....


Now I've also got a room in my house that's "mine" :) It's actually the game/theater room/library/cool stuff room. I'm setting here on my laptop, there's a 48" long bear trap (a real one) off to my right, a lighted gun-shelf over my head, an extensive shooting library off to my left.......knives here, guns there.....and I'm just weird enough to have a BR rifle set up on the shelf for a display. Wicked cool front rest, rear bag, bolt holster etc.... it provokes some great discussions around the pool table. And depending on what's being displayed with it, I'll have the black or silver barrel screwed on. (Is THAT gay or what :D:D )

Actually right now I'm using this rifle for competition and it's out in the shop covered in grease and fingerprints and several new chips in the paint........... the shelf is occupied by a Stoner SR24 and a bunch of quasi-"sniper" gear, but the idea is, IF you're setting up a perty gun and IF you've got a wife who thinks gun displays are cool and IF you're rednekkid enough like I'm and proud of your sport them MAYBE polishing one up ain't a total loss. You don't HAVE to throw it away when you're done. Now I'm not recommending you polish up a gun to set on the shelf wit' Momma' Hummels or Chiney plates or nuttin', but my polished and decked setups are real conversation pieces.


I'm actually having another one done for display and competition.......Red-White-N-Blue Patriot Big Dawg, polished and melonized 34" bbl, custom front rest.... I mean HEY, ya' gotta' store the thing somewhere!


LOL


al
 
Fellers, I picked up my action and the subject barrel from my FFL yesterday. I gotta say that I like the way it looks right out of the box. It's a McGowen bull (28"). It's a real chunk of iron. Eleven-degree crown really stands out on the large diameter muzzle. Dagnabbit, I think I may just shoot it as is. It's real pretty. I feel like a woman. Does this finish make my muzzle look big??? Honey, which scope should I wear? Quit looking at that other rifle!!!! I guess the honeymoon has to end sometime. (PS- picked up my new Springfield XDM yesterday. My 15 yr-old chewed out the center of mass bullseye at 21 feet in very short order. He never shot a pistol before. Now he has that same glazed over look in his eyes just like me............). Thanks guys.

CW
 
A dual action air sander like used in body work with the barral spinning in the lathes works great.

Just start at a large grit to get out the bad stuff and work up through the smaller grits to about 1200.

Then a light polish on the buffer. It really doesn't take to long. Once you polish you may find a spot or blemish, go back to the DA.

Gary
 
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